The Lehman Trilogy, a play about the Lehman brothers and the financial empire they left behind, opens at Canadian Stage in Toronto this week.
Helmed by legendary director Philip Akin, the play, written by Stefano Massini and adapted by Ben Power, traces the origins of Lehman Brothers, the financial firm that infamously filed for bankruptcy in 2008. The company’s closure set off a chain reaction of insolvency for firms and individuals alike in what would soon come to be known as the great recession.
In the play, though, it’s 1844, and a group of brothers has just landed in New York for the first time, with dreams of a better life in the new world.
“Capitalism is the mainstay of America,” Akin said in an interview with CP24. “It’s this central pillar that comes right up the middle, and then the whole society is built in a circle around it.”
The Lehman Trilogy had a brief pre-pandemic engagement in New York before returning to finish its run in 2021. It closed in January of 2022, earning several Tony Awards and much critical acclaim. Akin, who just finished directing the American play Heroes of the Fourth Turning in a co-production between The Howland Company and Crow’s Theatre, is no stranger to telling American stories in Toronto – but he’s picky about which ones he chooses.
“It’s a gamble,” he said. “Some of these plays aren’t going to translate in Canada. And I’m thinking about it for this play; the first line of it is, ‘he had been dreaming of America.’ How’s that going to land to a Canadian audience? I don’t know how people think of America. From the first line, people will make a choice, whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. The best part of theatre is not knowing what’s going to happen at the interaction of art and the public.”
Akin, though not intimately familiar with the history of the Lehman brothers before taking on this project, has found connections between the real people represented in the play and other American dynasties that have shaped modern society such as the Goldman-Sachs and Sackler families.
“There’s a rise and fall of these people,” said Akin. “There have been capitalists of all nationalities that rode the American dream. One of the most profound, thrilling moments of the play is when it tackles what we have to do to survive. It’s not about family or friends, it’s the organization that’s more important than anything else. It’s like that old saying: ‘you can love the company with all your heart, but it ain’t gonna love you back.’”
When it comes to what he hopes audiences take away from the play, Akin says he can’t pick a single thing – it depends on each individual audience member and their state of being on the day of their chosen performance.
“I don’t know what the audience is going to bring in,” he said. “Theatre is the interaction of who you are on that day that you walk in to the theatre, at the play we’ve created. It’s that interaction that’s unique and special and individual. I can’t control how it will land on you. It’s up to you, and whether you had a fight with a loved one that day. There’s a really good, pretty graphic visual statement that I make in this play, and I’m not telling anybody what it is because it needs to be seen. But you’ll know it when you see it.”
The Lehman Trilogy opens at Canadian Stage on Thursday. Tickets are available on the Canadian Stage website.
